The future of Otago's only professional theatre was being speculated on earlier this year. However, two shows by former Dunedin playwright Roger Hall have helped the turnaround.
"It's fantastic. Success breeds success in this game," interim theatre manager Karen Elliot said yesterday.
"Despite all the ups and downs and a lot of speculation, the theatre is in incredibly good heart. There's no denying it; the Fortune is on top of its game at the moment.
"Four Flat Whites in Italy was the most successful show in the Fortune's history. More than 7000 people came to see it and it sold out from the first night. We had to extend it a week, in the end."
The theatre also had a 78% attendance for the seven-venue Otago-Southland tour of Hall's Conjugal Rites and 80% for its latest production, 39 Steps.
"We have made a large amount of money from our shows this year. It shows that you can do very well if you get it right."
The children's play The Frog Prince, which opened on June 29, had also been enjoying heavy bookings, with eight sold-out shows in the past week, she said.
"That's wonderful. To have the theatre chocker with yelling, screaming, excited kids is just fantastic. They're the audiences of the future; and not just for the Fortune."
The theatre budgets for between 2000 and 3000 people attending each production and has this year received $480,000 annual funding from Creative New Zealand and $101,500 from the Dunedin City Council.
In January, the Fortune Theatre Trust initiated a Creative New Zealand-funded review of the theatre's operations, which recommended the appointment of an artistic director to work with the theatre manager. The theatre has not had an artistic director since 2002.
Ms Elliot has been interim manager since January, but was undecided yesterday whether she would be applying for the full-time theatre manager position.
Applications for the two positions close later this month.
Fortune trust board chairman Peter Brown said yesterday the review had been valuable.
"It's given us a good framework in which to work. The key recommendations pertain to the management structure set-up; that it would be better for the Fortune to have an artistic director-theatre manager model, similar to the Court Theatre in Christchurch and how the Fortune operated until a few years ago," he said.
"The artistic director and theatre manager will then work together on the structure they think will work best."
No decision had yet been made on the future of the theatre building, Mr Brown said.
A report commissioned by the building owner, the DCC, identified serious problems, including inadequate toilets, poor wheelchair access and sound leakage from the auditoriums.
